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Posted
9 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

It may have been an attitiude that making life harder for them gave them something to do, so helped discipline. Somehow Rum, Sodomy and the Electrolux doesnt have the same ring to it....

USN and postwar Western navies seem to have figured out how to keep sailors purposefully busy even with luxuries like laundries, bunks rather than hammocks,  and cafeteria style dining.  This was just classism dressed up as tradition.  Attitudes like that among RN trained Regular RCN officers caused near mutinies in the post-war RCN and led in part to HMCS Uganda voting to go home in the middle of a war.

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Posted

@urbanoid mentioned this Polish folk song:

Wanting to know more, I found it was very used in a Polish historical movie based on the third novel of the Sienkewicz's Trilogy. That movie is part likewise of another trilogy by Polish director Jerzy Hoffman.

On top of the historical interest for representing some scenes of the decline of Poland in the second half of the 17th century, the battle scenes are very good.

Full movie is available in youtube:

 

Posted

There has been several mentions of Operation Mincemeat on TN, but TMK no mention of the movie. Its apparently on Netflix now;

https://www.netflix.com/title/81428563

It was made in 2021, but refreshingly they didn't have the main characters played by black lesbians.

Posted

It's got Kelly Macdonald in it which imho, is a good enough reason to watch anything.

Otoh, unlike the original, 'The man who never was', it doesn't have Gloria Grahame in it, so there is that.

 

Posted
6 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

There has been several mentions of Operation Mincemeat on TN, but TMK no mention of the movie.

It was mentioned, but only very briefly so:

Watched it while it was on Amazon. Was okay, but not exactly epic. The spy drama didn't reach top suspense, the romance element felt tacked-on and more of a distraction than making up for the suspense deficit. Of course, knowing that it was successful didn't exactly help making you wonder how it would end, so it was a bit of an uphill battle for the script writers. But I think they could have squeezed the lemon harder, given that they were under time pressure to get everything prepared before the body would melt, and then had to play the locals in Spain just as much as they had to fool the German spies.

Posted

Ah, I only searched the FFZ.

Posted (edited)

The problem with Mincemeat may be the source material. Unlike the original, which was based on the book written by Lt Cmdr Ewen Montagu that headed the operation (there is an interesting story about how it came to be written I wont bother you with) which seems to have dramatised it a little. I idly wonder if Ian Fleming whom was in the XX committee during the war played a role in sexing it up a little. So the book when it came out was reasonably dramatic already, and for the film they then they tacked on a German spy component that was completely spurious, but gave the film the dramatic moment it (and Gloria Grahame) needed.

Not having seen the second film but have certainly read about it, I get the impression its largely based upon the book by Ben Macintyre, which is a history book, which is very heavy on facts unlike the original book by Montagu, but doesnt exactly work punchily as a thriller. There seems to have been an attempt from what ive read to try and make it as accurate as possible (and play some elements for laughs) without really having that same useful component of the Germans being clearly fooled by the spy snooping around (which did expound the useful background work they did providing ticket stubs and love letters in the original film).

I noticed a similar problem with the adaption of Macintyres book about Kim Philby, 'A Spy Among Friends', except there, whilst keeping the early parts of the drama accurate, they tacked on entirely extraneous bits about James Jesus Angleton going off the reservation and kidnapping  Sir Anthony Blunt (which certainly didnt happen but was wildly entertaining for all that), and the drama coming down firmly on the side of the director of MI5, Roger Hollis, being a Soviet Spy (which he probably wasnt, although there is just enough in the official files to keep it open as a possiblity). Which to be fair, actually made for some entertaining viewing, if not quite in the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy League.

I guess the lesson is, if you try to make an accurate historical film, people will find it lacking. Jason Bourne and James Bond have a lot to answer for.

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
Posted
1 hour ago, Ivanhoe said:

I watched part of the following;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_de_Ruyter_(film)

very interesting topic, though I know so little about history in that time frame I didn't get as much from it as many of you would.

 

Watched it some months ago. Liked it very much, and matches historical events, like the lynching of the De Witt brothers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corpses_of_the_De_Witt_Brothers

Posted

I need to find an accurate yet easily digestible docco on Youtube to get up to speed on the English/Dutch wars.

If Der Staten Generaal doesn't pull its collective head out of its collective ass concerning farming regs, the ROW will need somebody to invade and conquer so Dutch farmers can resume feeding damn near everybody.

 

Posted
12 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

I watched part of the following;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_de_Ruyter_(film)

very interesting topic, though I know so little about history in that time frame I didn't get as much from it as many of you would.

Well, it basically showed episodes of the Dutch fighting to become independent of Spain, and focused on the maritime part of that struggle.

Posted

New Nosferatu was quite good. Particularly first half of the movie was very good old-fashioned horror. Final act feels somewhat rushed, but that is true with source material (Dracula book and original Nosferatu movie) as well.

This was in many ways most faithful movie adaptation of Bram Stokers' book, and easily beats Coppola's 1992 Dracula, which I always thought as quite a weak and uninteresting adaptation, failing to capture any of the feel of the book. Here, the vampire is shown as properly evil ancient monster with unsatiable hunger, and not just some guy with somewhat tragic childhood.

Posted
25 minutes ago, Yama said:

New Nosferatu was quite good. Particularly first half of the movie was very good old-fashioned horror. Final act feels somewhat rushed, but that is true with source material (Dracula book and original Nosferatu movie) as well.

This was in many ways most faithful movie adaptation of Bram Stokers' book, and easily beats Coppola's 1992 Dracula, which I always thought as quite a weak and uninteresting adaptation, failing to capture any of the feel of the book. Here, the vampire is shown as properly evil ancient monster with unsatiable hunger, and not just some guy with somewhat tragic childhood.

This guy kinda agrees with your assessment: https://arkhavencomics.com/2024/12/30/the-dark-herald-recommends-nosferatu-2024/

Posted

Yeah that guys opinion is remarkably close to mine. I have bit more positive view on Depp's performance - but I am not good at spotting weak acting at languages other than my mother tongue. Pity that ATJ couldn't make it to this film, as I love her (but not in a creepy way...), but OTOH, maybe a fresher face suited this one better.

Some of the issues of the film were ironically due to following source material (1922 Nosferatu) too closely. But I don't want to rain too much on this parade, I still liked it a lot.

Posted

 

Posted

Current Hollywood, in a nutshell;

 

GU3mcu0XcAA6Flh.jpg

Posted

they do not actually show it in the trailer

it is all suggested indirectly and ominous

even in the main feature screen time is very short so that when it is there is remains alien instead of becoming

familiar which therefore relieves all tension

 

one of the greatest film trailers ever made because of the way this works

 

ridley scott would seem to forget what he did with later films

and over explain things with clumsy story choices and bad dialogue

 

 

 

 

Posted

sinistar admires rod serling as one of the great souls the universe produced

 

one of the more profound episodes of the twilight zone once the audience gets what this is saying

 

 

 

Posted
6 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

Current Hollywood, in a nutshell;

Though, same argument could be made about Disney's classic animated Snow White, and also for...

550x798.jpg

 

Posted

This one, I thought, was decent:

MV5BODI4NTc5NWItNjA0Yi00MjMyLWEyMGItMTMw

 

Naturally, the focus is not on the fighting but her personal perspective of the events unfolding. Still, was no waste of time.

Posted

Maybe. While Golda Meir technically was a figure during my childhood I have no recollection to compare these performances to her real self; besides, acting is more than imitatation. I found both performances perfectly adequate for the role.

 

In "Munich", the figure of Golda Meir wasn't center stage; she sets things im motion. So, naturally she's shown in this cabinet debate but we don't learn much of what was going on inside her.

In "Golda", we see more of that, but of course it's speculation on the scriptwriter's, director's, and Mrs Mirren's imagination s, so maybe "learn from it" is too strong a word. Still, she's "a human being and a historic figure" rather than "just a historic figure".

Posted
10 hours ago, Sinistar said:

they do not actually show it in the trailer

it is all suggested indirectly and ominous

even in the main feature screen time is very short so that when it is there is remains alien instead of becoming

familiar which therefore relieves all tension

 

one of the greatest film trailers ever made because of the way this works

 

ridley scott would seem to forget what he did with later films

and over explain things with clumsy story choices and bad dialogue

 

 

 

 

The 1986 Trailer "This Time, It's War" just gave me goosebumps back in the day:

 

 

Posted

Has anyone watched The Six Triple Eight? It's a nice story but some aspects just don't make much sense, for example main character studying in a non segregated school.

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